"Rabies,"Israeli Slasher Film, (Ashares Keshales), Screens at Chicago Film Festival

"Rabies" is an Israeli slasher film from Director Aharon Keshales that takes the classic conceits of American horror movies and reverses almost every one of them.

The film opens with a completely dark screen and a pulsing sound. A young girl in a red dress is being held captive in a dark trap in the woods. It is safe to say that being trapped in some way is one of the film's recurring themes. The young couple are lovers, fleeing so they can be together. The young man with her, Ofer (Ofer Schlehter) says he will go for help.

These woods are unlike the Camp Crystal woods of American horror films, because they are mined, as might be the case in Israel. Otherwise, the trees and dry-looking terrain do not look that unfamiliar from American horror films we have seen before.

In the car are 2 boys and 2 girls on their way to a tennis match . Adi, the girl with short, dark hair is stroking the hair of the taller blonde girl, Shira, who is sleeping in the back seat with her head in Adi's lap. One of the boys in the front seat enjoys telling the driver, Mike, to look in the rear-view mirror at the two girls, leering with implied lesbian implications.

Meanwhile, a camp employee named Menashe and his girlfriend Rona are discussing his need to check the park, with his dog, Buba. The two are lovers and are bantering pleasantly (Rona will reveal she is pregnant later in the film.)

Menashe sets off on his duties in the park and, in the course of the rest of the film, his dog is murdered, he is murdered (by accident) and the bad guy ultimately is one of only two survivors of this film.

Why "Rabies"?

Why is it called "Rabies" when there is not one single rabid animal in the film? Possibly because everyone in it seems to go completely mad before the film's plot unravels.

A perverted police officer is shot by Adi. One character is blown up by a land mine..rather unexpectedly. Ofer staggers out of the woods, bloody from a bear trap he has been caught in, and is struck by the car driven by the teen-agers. He begs for the help of the foursome. The boys go with him back into the woods (which never seems like a good idea in these films.)

In the course of their search for Ofer's girlfriend (whom he tells the duo is his "sister"), the two tennis playing buddies will become mortal enemies, the two girls will have an unfortunate encounter with two police officers (one of whom is a pervert), and the entire world will go mad.

The film ends, again, with a dark screen.

As an active voting member of HWA (Horror Writers Association), I can testify that this Israeli horror film is exciting, interesting, and a good evening's entertainment. It is creative and original with some nicely-crafted twists and turns on traditional horror, a genre in which I have written my share of stories. (www.HellfireandDamnation.com).